


walkin' a tightrope

by Lire_Casander



Series: make a feast out of these crumbs (the Alex Manes Appreciation Week 2019) [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Week 2019, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: I can't look down, I'm tryna fight the feeling, I will fall to the ground if I ever see you





	walkin' a tightrope

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary taken from _Man On A Wire_ by The Script. It belongs to the _**make a feast out of these crumbs (the Alex Manes' Appreciation Week 2019)**_ series, whose title also belongs to a song by The Script, _Live Like We're Dying_.
> 
> This is written for the [Alex Manes' Appreciation Week](https://rawandmessyandbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/184555967345/ive-created-this-appreciation-week-in-response) over at tumblr, _**Day 2: Alternate Universe (AU)**_
> 
> Anything you recognize is not mine, although any and every mistake is my own.
> 
> I have to thank both [estel_willow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow) and [Shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans) for their help in finding an idea for the first AU I've ever written in all my years in different fandoms.

Alex is not focusing on the homework glaring at him from the desk. He’s attempting to get through his shift at the ticket booth at the UFO museum. He needs his algebra done for tomorrow, but the equations are a blur before his eyes as he recalls how stupid he’s been, for even thinking Michael Guerin was into guys – into _him_ , even.

With a huff, he puts his notebook aside. He’s not going to get anything done today if he keeps thinking about what ifs, so he better do something productive. Although, when he looks up at the street behind the glass, there’s no one to sell tickets to, so his attempt at distracting himself from beating thoughts is futile. He fidgets in his seat, green visor in place blocking part of the sun and helping him avoid curious glances as he scolds at himself for being childish. If Guerin doesn’t like him like that, he has to man up and accept it. It’s not as if he’s already head over heels for him. He can’t be.

He _isn’t_.

A tap on the glass startles him, and when he looks up he sees the only person he wasn’t expecting to find coming to the museum.

“Hey,” Guerin says, flushed and nervous and _gorgeous_ with the sun on his back. “Can we talk?”

Alex makes a noncommittal gesture followed by the vaguest “Uh, yeah, I guess” ever, but Guerin is having none of it. 

“Somewhere private, maybe?” he insists. Alex has recently found he can’t deny anything to him, so with a stubborn sigh he puts up the irky sign, _Been abducted, back in five_ , and follows him inside, where Guerin has already stomped at Alex’s swift head movement asking for him to enter the building.

Alex leads him towards the hall where the stars and the planets are on display for the kids – and the few adults that dare set foot inside – to learn about the space before actually entering the juiciest parts of the exhibition. Once they are surrounded by fake interstellar light, he turns to face Guerin and tries to mask his nervousness by saying simply, “Okay, talk,” as if it’s the only thing he wants from Guerin. As though he isn’t secretly, desperately, hoping Guerin’s come to him because he’s made up his mind, instead of being here to politely let him down, tell him Guerin’s not into guys.

He doesn’t expect chapped lips seeking his, a movement emboldened by wishful thinking and a bubble of something eerily similar to _happiness_ exploding in his chest. For a moment, when Guerin pulls away for air – for any reaction on Alex’s part – time freezes, and Alex can see the small smile curling up Guerin’s lips, the very ones that were kissing him just a second ago. And then he doesn’t know who starts the motions again, and it really doesn’t matter anymore, not when they are fused together in an embrace that lasts both an eternity and a fragment of an illusion.

Guerin’s niping at his lower lip, prying it open, and Alex can feel fireworks exploding above his head. He wonders briefly when he’s become the epitome of a teenage movie, but he doesn’t have much left to muse about when his brain short circuits around the soft sounds Guerin’s making, reciprocated by his own shameless guttural groans. There’s a weird sound somewhere at his left, and although for a second he thinks he’s imagining it, the white light blinding him through his closed eyelids isn’t something his mind can supply just from a _really good_ making out session.

He hears a gasp as Guerin breaks their connection, not for air, but out of fear it seems. Alex opens his eyes to take in the scene around them – part of the fake stars have fallen from the wall, and Saturn above them is threatening to drop on their heads, dangling from a broken thread of wire. “What the hell?” he curses, grabbing Guerin’s arms tighter. 

“Shit,” he hears Guerin mutter under his breath. Alex is trembling, both from the high of kissing the guy he’s pretty sure is the love of his life – and how is he so sure, he doesn’t know – and from the scaring thought of being crushed by a planet model that looks heavy enough to break a hole on the solid concrete ground.

With a loud crack, the tiny thread holding Saturn up breaks, and the model falls quickly on them. Alex braces himself for the hit, closing his eyes, doubling over himself. But the blow never comes, and he dares a quick glance around, only to witness the only thing he wasn’t expecting.

Michael Guerin is standing tall, body covering Alex’s as one hand reaches out, fingers crouched in a painful stance. His frame is shaking, curls wild around his head, eyes fixed on the planet as if willing it not to fall.

The planet does fall, but it traces a loop to the right and drops right before his eyes, a few feet away from them. As though Guerin has forced it there by the sole willpower of his mind.

Alex’s gaze darts from Saturn to Guerin, and when he allows himself to check for any injuries in his kissing partner, he realizes the other boy is bleeding through his nose. “Are you okay?” he asks, searching for other wounds. “Guerin, are you okay? Have you been hit? Where else are you bleeding?”

“I’m fine,” Guerin says, pale and shivering. He slaps Alex’s hands away. “I’m fine!” he repeats. Alex believes him.

“What was that? What did just happen?” Alex fires his questions like a machine gun, but only one gets the reaction he’s aiming for. “What have you done, Guerin?”

The other boy looks at him, as if he’s suddenly remembered where they are and what has happened. “Shit,” he mutters again, lowering his arm and fisting his hand. The few stars that remain intact flicker. Alex blinks, not quite believing his eyes, but deep inside he thinks he understands.

This is all Guerin’s making – the stars flickering, the planets dropping – and somehow he’s capable of some telekinesis because Alex could swear Guerin’s willed Saturn out of their orbit before it crushed them to dust. Just when he’s about to say something, Guerin shoots him a panicked look and bolts out of the room. Alex follows him swiftly, managing to clasp his fingers around Guerin’s wrist. “Hey,” he says softly, using a strength he didn’t know he had to keep Guerin in place. “Where are you running off to?”

Guerin tries to free himself, but Alex has a good grip on him. “Guerin?” When the curly haired boy doesn’t answer, instead just keeps trying to tug his wrist free, Alex sighs. “Michael,” he begins, and that’s enough to stop Guerin from fidgeting any longer. “Don’t be scared. It’s just me. I want to know what happened back there. You actually kinda saved my life.”

Guerin shrugs but doesn’t say anything. 

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Alex keeps going, trying to elicit some response from Guerin, but the other by just remains silent. “How did you do it? How could you move all those things around to keep them from falling onto us?”

“Because I made them fall in the first place!” Guerin finally cries out, sharply jerking his arm free from Alex’s grip. “You don’t know, you _can’t_. I have to go. _Now_.” He finally makes it out the entrance of the museum, leaving Alex shockingly aware that there has just been _something_ there, something he can’t quite put his finger on. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said that Guerin had used some kind of power to prevent the chaos from wrecking them both.

If he was a believer, he’d think Guerin being telekinetic isn’t something from this world. But he isn’t a believer. He works at the UFO museum but he doesn’t think such things as extraterrestrial powers exist. And yet here he is, standing back in the middle of the havoc Guerin’s left in his wake.

He tries to confront Guerin, but every time he approaches the other boy, Guerin finds a excuse to not talk to him, turning instead to Max and Isobel Evans and leaving Alex hanging out on his own by the door of every class they share these last days of high school. 

Alex has attempted to wrap his head about what happened – he's even talked to Rosa, without giving much away, but he hasn't really understood her words, rolling off her tongue after one too many drafts from the joint she’s sharing with him on the rooftop.

"Everyone's an alien these days, Alex," she assures him, eyes latched to the blue sky above them. "What if your Museum Guy can move stuff with his mind? Does it change the way you feel about him?" 

Alex wants to counteract, to tell her that aliens don't exist and Guerin surely isn’t one, that there has to be another explanation. Deep down, however, he knows that Guerin could have grown a second head and a green tail overnight, and Alex would still fall for every bit he had to offer. 

He isn’t surprised when Isobel Evans approaches him a few days after the incident, while he’s playing his guitar sitting on a bench near the bleachers, back at school. Guerin’s been nowhere to be found – the toolshed has been empty for most part of the week now, and Alex is becoming antsy with fear that he might have pushed away the only person ever willing to kiss him, the only person he’s ever wanted to kiss in the first place. Isobel’s one of Guerin’s friends, along with her twin Max, and although he didn’t expect _her_ to be the one hunting him down , it isn’t something he wants to fight. Now now.

“I need to talk to you,” Isobel says as a manner of greeting, motioning for him to follow her up the bleachers. He does as told, curious to know what the Ice Princess might want to tell him.

He finds out when she grabs his wrist and somehow she’s standing in front of him but she’s also in his head, fuzzy and blurry and soft around the edges. “What do you know, Alex?” he hears her speak in his mind.

“What do I know about what?” It’s weird how he doesn’t need to open his mouth to speak to her in here, but it’s by far not the strangest thing to have happened to him lately.

“Michael. Us.”

Maybe Rosa wasn't too far off when she spoke about aliens, because he's pretty sure no normal human being is able to enter minds the way he's feeling Isobel inside of his. 

"What has he told you?" she insists. "What do you _know_?" There's an edge to the words she’s projecting, and Alex feels her distress. 

"Nothing," he replies. 

"What has he done?" And there it is, the reason sprawled before him as she shivers, images of Guerin and the Evans twins hunted and cut open. He doesn’t understand until she speaks again. "Whatever it is, we can’t risk you on the loose knowing whatever you think you know, not you being _you_."

She stares intently at him for a second, as if trying to make him do something. Alex doesn’t budge a bit, standing his ground against the invasion. She sighs loudly and he can feel her whole body sagging. 

"Why can't I reach you?" she wonders, lips never parting. "How come you're-It can't be. No way." She’s glaring now. "I was right, he _does_ love-What do you feel for him? Do you love him? How's that even possible?" 

He feels like he can’t lie in here, but he can choose not to reply, because he doesn’t want Isobel to know how he feels. There’s a wave of heat surging through him; he looks down for a brief moment, letting his guard down, and that's when he feels Isobel pushing through, claiming control. When he looks up, she’s staring back at him with an unreadable look in her eyes. “You’re going to leave Roswell,” she commands softly. “You’re following your dad’s steps, just like you’ve always wanted to. Become a real Manes man. Forget about everything. Forget about Michael.”

He doesn’t want to nod, but his head acts on its own volition, and suddenly he’s back again on the school yard, bleachers way behind him, Isobel Evans sporting a worried look in her face. “Hey, are you alright?” she asks, all innocent looks. “You kinda spaced out on me here.”

“I’m okay,” he replies shakily. He doesn’t know what has happened, but somehow there are memories fleeing his mind – a kiss, a crash down, fear – and being replaced by the sudden need to go back home and tell his father he wants to enlist. “I just need to go home.”

“Then go, by all means.”

The look on his father’s face when he announces he’s enlisting into the Air Force is priceless, all resentment buried deep down, all the affronts and the pain forgotten, just pride in a gaze that speaks of legacy and strength.

He never once questions himself for that sudden change of heart, but whenever he goes to bed at night, for the fortnight before he jumps into a bus away from Roswell, Alex frowns at himself as his mind conjures a vague image of stars falling from the sky and a kiss that speaks of promises and futures. His dreams are filled with trembling hands and whispered words he doesn’t recall ever speaking.

Alex doesn’t see Guerin again, and he doesn’t understand the _longing_ in his heart as he thinks of the other boy, as if Guerin’s been important to him somehow, but he can’t remember a time after having snatched a guitar from Guerin’s hands by the parking lot at school, or whether there’s been any interaction with him – and he has an inkling that there _has_ , he just can’t force his mind to remember.

So he packs his bag and salutes his father before hoping in a bus, watching as Jesse Manes walks away, shoulders straight with pride. Alex feels he’s leaving a part of himself in Roswell, and he can’t quite placate the fear that he’s missing out on something that could define his whole existence. 

With one last glance back from behind the window, ready to say goodbye to his hometown, he startles as he sees Guerin arriving at the deck apparently in a rush, curls disheveled and eyes wildly searching for something. Alex frowns at himself when it flutters at the sight, but the frown disappears when he locks eyes with Guerin and the world seems to disappear. For a brief moment it’s like there’s no one else in the world apart from them, and his heart does a somersault dive into the abyss of his soul. He wishes he’d know why he has the sudden _need_ to jump out of the bus and pull Guerin – _Michael_ – into a bone crushing hug. 

As his heart remembers of a different time he can’t wrap his head about, the bus jerks forward, and he leaves Roswell with his mind set on the Air Force, his eyes trained to a lonely boy forgotten on the curb, and his soul attached to a memory he doesn’t know it’s already fading away into his dreams.

Alex can’t erase the sad look on Guerin’s eyes when the bus starts to move away. He’s going to be sick, thoughts swirling around in his head – a kiss, a sigh, chaos and then silence. A planet crashing to the floor. The idea of leaving all behind and start anew battling with a feeling deeply engraved in his soul. The war ensuing between reason and heart promises to be bloody.

His heart wins.

“Stop!” he says before he can stop himself. “Please stop!”

“Have you forgotten something, son?” the driver asks, but Alex is already scraping to get on his feet, gathering his bag and all but rushing to the exit. 

“Yes,” he pants, aware that he’s replying to more than a simple question. He wants to yell _I’ve forgotten how love feels like but now I remember_. “Yes,” he simply repeats.

The door opens and he jumps out of the bus without even a glance back at what could have been. His body already knows where Guerin is, as if he’s already falling into Guerin’s orbit, and he makes a beeline for the boy standing awkwardly in the middle of the deck, mouth open in disbelief as Alex all but runs towards him.

“Alex!” he manages to say before Alex reaches him.

He collapses against Guerin, wrapping his arms around his frame, and Guerin holds him back, nose buried in the hollow of Alex’s neck. He feels oddly at home in Guerin’s arms. He feels _safe_.

“How?” he feels rather than hears Guerin ask against his skin.

The memories are now stronger – he remembers the museum, he remembers Isobel reaching into his mind to force him to forget, and somehow he knows it’s all real. Whatever they have going on, the Evans twins and Michael, Alex is going to find out. He’s going to understand. He’s going to accept.

It shouldn’t be hard, since he’s just all but handed his heart to the only person he trusts to keep him safe from harm.

“Please tell Isobel not to mess with my mind ever again,” he replies, breathing a scent that’s so Michael he could cry.

“I’m sorry. I just-it was too much, I didn’t know-I told them, what happened, and she said she’d take care of it. Told her not to, but she did anyway. I’ve never wanted you to-go away,” Guerin pulls away to look him in the eye. “Still don’t know how you-I mean, she’s-I-”

“She couldn’t mess with what I feel,” Alex declares, fingers moving from Guerin’s nape to his chin. “That’s stronger than anything she could throw my way. _We_ are stronger than that.”

Michael gazes down at him in awe, a small smile curling up his lips just like that day back at the museum. “I’m sorry, for running away. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You can make it up to me by explaining yourself,” Alex concedes, leaning into his touch. “Over a milkshake and some fries? You can tell me anything. Whatever it is, I promise I won’t be freaked out.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m sure I will keep this one.”

The next time Alex steps on a bus to get away from Roswell, he’s heading off to college, holding Michael’s hand in his own, plans for a bright future ahead of them, no more secrets between them, forgiveness and acceptance a beacon for them in the night, no fear and no regrets, as long as they’re together.


End file.
